It's suddenly become The Thing for big-movie-franchises-spawned-from-books to split the final installment into two movies. With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it was justified. Breaking Dawn, not so much. Now we have news that Mockingjay, the third and final installment of The Hunger Games, will be split into two movies and released with a year between the two.
I'm not opposed to the idea - Mockingjay has a lot of material to cover (oh, shut the hell up. Mockingjay was NOT that bad). However, why just do it for Mockingjay? Catching Fire has probably just as much - if not more - material packed into it and it could certainly warrant a second movie as well. Victory Tour? Wedding planning? Setup for the Quarter Quell? The Quell itself? Does this not ring a bell to anyone? I'll be intrigued to see how well they get everything in Catching Fire stuffed into a 2 1/2 hour movie and I'm sure they'll pull it off (witness the wonderful handling of The Hunger Games) - but I'm not sure the stuffing is necessary. And don't tell me that this idea to split movies just now occurred to the producers - they could have been planning this from the moment Deathly Hallows made bank.
(This is where I turn and shake my fist at the universe that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was not split into two movies. Because there would be precedence for the middle part of a series to be split. But no - we had to have a useless dragon chase scene and sacrifice any real plot the story had to offer, making my favorite HP book (to that point) a useless pile of horse manure as a movie. Forever shall the name Mike Newell be cursed in my speech. Actually, Alfonso Cuaron deserves some of that blame as well because he was the one who convinced Newell he could do GoF in one movie, even though Warner Bros was originally opened to doing two. As if screwing up Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't enough. Idiot).
Bottom Line - Mockingjay as two movies: Good Idea. Catching Fire as two movies: Better Idea. Someone should have thought of it before I blogged about it (and by "someone," I mean Lionsgate).
I'm not opposed to the idea - Mockingjay has a lot of material to cover (oh, shut the hell up. Mockingjay was NOT that bad). However, why just do it for Mockingjay? Catching Fire has probably just as much - if not more - material packed into it and it could certainly warrant a second movie as well. Victory Tour? Wedding planning? Setup for the Quarter Quell? The Quell itself? Does this not ring a bell to anyone? I'll be intrigued to see how well they get everything in Catching Fire stuffed into a 2 1/2 hour movie and I'm sure they'll pull it off (witness the wonderful handling of The Hunger Games) - but I'm not sure the stuffing is necessary. And don't tell me that this idea to split movies just now occurred to the producers - they could have been planning this from the moment Deathly Hallows made bank.
(This is where I turn and shake my fist at the universe that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was not split into two movies. Because there would be precedence for the middle part of a series to be split. But no - we had to have a useless dragon chase scene and sacrifice any real plot the story had to offer, making my favorite HP book (to that point) a useless pile of horse manure as a movie. Forever shall the name Mike Newell be cursed in my speech. Actually, Alfonso Cuaron deserves some of that blame as well because he was the one who convinced Newell he could do GoF in one movie, even though Warner Bros was originally opened to doing two. As if screwing up Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't enough. Idiot).
Bottom Line - Mockingjay as two movies: Good Idea. Catching Fire as two movies: Better Idea. Someone should have thought of it before I blogged about it (and by "someone," I mean Lionsgate).
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